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THE PUBLIC PLAYGROUND

An Interesting Development in
Education

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"Batter up!" at Chico Normal Training School. '*

by EDWARD HYATT

Superintendent Public Instruction

.03

7Vn'.y w £/«? f/n'/'J of a series of leaflets on Health Conservation authorized by the
legislature of 1911 at the request of the Women's Christian Temperance Union of the
State of California, under the auspices of Mrs. Sara J. Dorr, the president, and Miss
Anna E. Chase, the secretary. It is, therefore, appreciatively inscribed to the good
women of that organization, those who never weary in well doing, and who make such
a powerful influence for good in every corner of our commonwealth.

INTRODUCTORY.

This circular is to call the particular attention of the people of California to a
great social movement that has spread over our whole country almost in a day, so
quickly that we hardly realize it, or understand it — the Playground Movement.

This country is so strong, so young, so full of lusty strength, that it has not had
as yet much thought of the future. It has never stopped to worry about the kind
of human beings who are coming on. It has been so eager in developing its
resources, so swift in its pursuit of dollars, so engrossed in spending money, that
little thought has been given to preserving the sane and wholesome human life that
is necessary to the real prosperity of any land.

Opportunity for relaxation and play are necessary, just as food and drink are
necessary. Without them, man is a morose, dissatisfied and dangerous demon.
Those who own the country now and run it now must give thought and time and
money to the play of the young people who are coming on. They withhold it at
their peril and at the peril of the land.

We are herding incredible numbers of artisans and laborers into congested cities,
with no opportunity for relaxation and exercise in the open air.

We have been building huge schoolhouses on the crowded streets, and filling
them full of thousands upon thousands of children without opportunity at home or
at school for natural play in the sunshine and the open air.

We drive the little boys and their games of ball away from the vacant lots in
order to cover the lots with buildings — and give the boys nothing instead. We
make grand parks and fill them with flowers and grass and shrubs — not for the
poor people and the children to use, but for the rich people in good clothes to
admire and point to with pride.

We give our school grounds to the janitor rather than to the children. The
youngsters are penalized if they come early or stay late. The school hours are
arranged for the convenience of the teachers rather than for the good of the chil-
dren. The whole school plant is used less than half of the time.

All these things and many others of similar import constitute a peril to our
nation that good citizens must face. The Playground Movement is directed against
it. Therefore, I venture to send this little message to the good people of the Golden
State, asking them to read it and think about it.

Very truly yours.

EDWARD HYATT,

Superintendent Public Instruction.

310346

A MODERN PLAYGROUND.

General view of the Echo Park Playground at Los Angeles, one of the largest and most
modern in the country. This shows a characteristic setting and characteristic activities.

The great American game as it is played at Echo Park. Lungs and arms and legs are
given the work intended for them, and necessary for health. Note the wide spaces afforded
by this playground. Some such opportunity is necessary to the safety of the state wherever
there are congested populations.

THE PUBLIC PLAYGROUND

An Interesting Development in Education

Prepared by
FREDERICK B. MOORE

WHY PLAYGROUNDS?

Play is the natural activity of childhood. It is through play that the teacher
enters into intimate touch with the child and secures an actual personal influence
over him. Children get their real life largely through play and derive from it their
interests, on which education must always largely depend. ,

Yet. it is only within the last dozen years that Americans have begun to realize
the importance of play and to meet this need, that is greater and deeper and more
vital than any need for books and study.

The America of our grandfathers was essentially rural. In the latter third of the
nineteenth century, however, new economic and industrial conditions gave rise to a
great tide of humanity sweeping city-ward from the fields and villages. Cities grew
at a rate truly marvelous. / The native population became urban in many great
sections of the land. The people were drawn into the cities. Born of a race of
pioneers, adapted by heredity and inclination to the free, open, vigorous life of the
farm and woodland, the children bore the brunt of the change. They were the
ones who suffered most. They were crammed into tenements and flats ; herded
into schools without room for active play; pressed harder and harder by more
exacting teachers ; forced to seek recreation in the canyon-like streets, in foul air
and moral contamination. They were restricted more and more closely by ever-
increasing laws and ordinances. They were given a strange environment that took
the pink from their cheeks and the steel from their natures. Through them the
race was degenerating. The new generation, the citizens of the future, were for-
gotten. Now. recognition for their welfare is coming, and the cities generally are
beginning to value and conserve the strength, vitality and sanity of their men and
women of to-morrow, even while they are paying in sickness, and crime, and vice,
and anarchy the price of past neglect.

The movement has spread throughout the land. From a recognition of the play
need has grown a realization of the benefits of crganizcd play. Thisr linked with a
movement t(5 make the school the civic and social center of each community, has
extended the scope of the Playground -Movement even to the rural districts. It has
a message for every community in the land.

This is an interesting view of the yard of the Frank McCoppin School in San Francisco,
Miss Sarah B. Jenkins, principal. It shows a play festival in progress, with the children of
the school as participants and the adults of the neighborhood as spectators. This is a new
use for the small city school yard, and is an excellent thing, not only for stimulating the
interest of the children themselves in their school, but also for promoting a community
spirit, and for making of the schoolhouse in a sense the social center of the community it
serves. Note the basketball equipment shown, and the modern outside stairs.

II.

HISTORY AND IDEALS.

Historically, the Playground Movement in this country began in Boston in 1886,
but concerned itself then only in a limited way with the needs of small children.
For a dozen years thereafter the movement lay dormant, until in 1898, the begin-
nings of the world-famous Chicago system were made. Upon this, especially the
big recreation center system of South Park, have been modeled a very large number
of the public playgrounds all over the United States. The growth was slow, even
after the beginning was made. In 1906, but forty-one communities in the United
States had supervised playgrounds. There were but eight playground associations
and no State playground legislaiton. Ninety cities maintained playgrounds in 1907,
one hundred and seventy-seven in 1908 and three hundred and thirty-six in 1909.
During 1910, a hundred and ninety-five more cities began playground campaigns,
and the movement is now general throughout the United States. New Jersey,
Massachusetts, Virginia, Ohio, Washington and California led in enacting play-
ground legislation, and others have followed till now sixteen States have such laws.
In the last decade, municipalities in this country have expended considerably over
$60,000,000 on playgrounds alone.

IDEALS ARE SOCIAL.

The ideals of the movement have been primarily social from the first. In the
very beginning, they were negative — to keep the children away from the physical,
social and moral dangers of the street. With its growth the movement has taken
up a series of positive social and economic aims. The forms of activity are quite
varied, including besides ordinary games, play and swimming, such things as
dramatics, motion pictures, gardening, civic clubs, folk dancing, industrial work,
libraries, self-government clubs, singing, story telling, play festivals.

Thinking people realize that through the recreation center workers are made
more efficient, so that factory and other industrial labor will be better done because
the operatives will be better fitted for their tasks. They realize that scientific study
of juvenile delinquency has shown that recreation centers are powerful agents in
reducing juvenile crime^- They realize there is no more effective way than this of
fighting tuberculosis. They appreciate the benefits of the development of com-
munity spirit through festivals and other public gatherings of a local nature. Those
interested in the assimilation of the immigrants coming to this country recognize
in the playgrounds the real melting pot of the nation. In playgrounds are found a
powerful weapon for fighting the white slave traffic. At the playground is devel-
oped in the child the civic sense ; he learns to live with and get^along u-ith other
children, and thereby acquires the fundamental training of citizenship\ )

Money expended on playgrounds is not lost. They meet a typically modern
requirement, in that they are good business. They are worth, to the community, in
increased efficiency of its citizenry, and decrease in crime and vice, the cost of put-
ting them in and maintaining them. ; Their preventive effects have already been
amply demonstrated.

IDENTIFIED WITH SCHOOLS.

Recently has grown up a disposition to link the playgrounds more closely with
the schools. It is parallel with a movement that is making of the schoolhouse the

civic and recreational center of the community. Less and less are playgrounds the
work of private organizations and endowments, and more and more are cities and
towns putting the public moneys into the work of caring for the play needs of the
children and the children's parents.

Dr. Luther H. Gulick declared after three years of investigation that sixteen
per cent of the children who drop out of school while in the grammar grades do so
because of ill health and relievable physical deficiency. He declares such children
progress nine per cent more slowly than healthy, normal children in their school
work. The work of the playground would seem to be more important to these
children than the work of the schoolroom itself.

But over and above this is the direct educational value of play itself. The game
has a benefit for the mind and the spirit as well as for the body, and so has its
important function to perform for the most robust child, just as truly as for
the sicklv.

A period of unmixed joy at a municipal summer camp, on the beach, Los Angeles county,
California. Barefoot American boyhood is not only being fed at nominal cost, here, but is
learning the fundamental lessons of citizenship, in this democratic contact with his fellows.

III.

THE MOVEMENT IN CALIFORNIA.

California, in company with other States of the Pacific coast, has done much
toward adequate playground provision ; very much more remains to be accom-
plished in the future.

The roster of cities that have made serious efforts along this line is considerable
San Francisco has spent well over a million dollars in developing a system of seven
playgrounds. Oakland began in 1909 with two small school playgrounds, and now
has ten good centers, five in parks and five in school yards. Los Angeles had the
first municipal playground commission in the United States, and up to January
Tit, 1911, had expended $137,000 for the work. The commission has supervision
of thirteen play centers, in addition to a site of fifty-three acres secured this year,
which is to be made one of the most complete recreation grounds in any city in the
United States. Berkeley, Sacramento, Stockton, Chico, Marysville, Riverside,
Redlands, Pasadena, San Diego, Eureka, Fresno. Yuba City, Watsonville, and
Santa Monica are among the other cities of the State that have been active along
this line. Seashore and mountain camps are becoming popular, extending the
field of activity to rural districts.

It has come, moreover, to be recognized that the need for supervised playgrounds
is not confined to the larger cities, but extends to the smaller city and even to the
rural community.

EDUCATING LEADERS.

A crying need in playground work is for the efficient and trained supervisor and
leader, who must be a combination of the athlete and social worker. Directed or
supervised play is necessary.

To meet this need for competent play leaders, normal schools and universities
are putting- in courses that are more and more nearly touching the practical want.
While only about half the normals on the Pacific coast have done so, four of the
California state normal schools have equipped model playgrounds and are training
pupils for the work.

Recognition of the need is being given by the universities of the coast. The
University of California, following up the great success of a course in plays and
games, given at the 1911 summer school session, has greatly enlarged the course
and the number of instructors.

However, the need for trained leaders has so far outsripped the supply that three
cities of the coast, i. e., Seattle, Portland, and Los Angeles, have put in training
schools of their own and are operating them successfully.

PLAY AS EDUCATION.

A committee of the California Teachers' Association, in a report submitted early
this year, said : "One of the significant developments of the movement is the
awakening of educators to the importance and significance of play in the educa-
tional development of the child. In Alameda, the Board of Education by order
made plays and games a regular part of the school activities, and required certain
of the teachers to actively take part with the children in their plays and games.
This has been attended with wonderful results. School architecture is also taking

on marked changes to meet the growing idea of the schoolhouse as a community
civic, social and recreation center."

After a summary of educational work along playground lines on the Pacific coast
and particularly in California, the report continues :

"The private association is rapidly passing out of existence as an active force
in this development. The municipal commission idea is growing stronger and
stronger and is rapidly developing into the larger idea of the Public Recreation
Commission. The most remarkable feature of the whole development of the past
three years, however, has been the sudden awakening of the school systems of the
various cities and towns and even of the rural districts of the State. There are
several reasons for this and the prospect is that the school system is likely to be
the dominant factor in the playground development of the future in all except the
very largest cities, and even in these, the backbone of a system of municipal play-
grounds will be the school playgrounds. With the ra*pid development of the school-
house as the social, civic, recreative center of the people, the importance of the
schoolhouse as a factor in the playground and public recreation scheme of a city or
town or a country district takes on still greater significance.

"Aside from the social possibilities of the school playground and the school build-
ing, to educators the educational power of organized play and games in relation to
physical growth, mental development and character building is too potent a force
to be longer neglected as a vital part of the scheme of public instruction."

.
NEEDS IN CALIFORNIA.

Needs of the playground movement in its relation to the schools of California
are outlined in the report as follows :

1. A better understanding on the part of school workers and of patrons of the
movement, and of the significance of the movement as an educational power and as
a great constructive social force.

2. Teachers prepared to act as leaders in plays and games with the children.

3. Professional leaders in play and recreation, for the cities.

4. Larger area for school grounds. "Many schoolhouses are now being erected
upon plats of ground entirely inadequate."

5. Careful collection and study of data relative to the development in all its
phases. "It has been eight years since the first playground commission was estab-
lished by a municipality in this State. Within that time, the movement has spread
with remarkable rapidity and has taken many different forms. Within that time
has developed the large idea of Public Recreation, involving the question of proper
opportunities for the right use of leisure, not only of the children, but of all the
people. The schools are looming large in this new idea, but certainly no one is
prepared to state with surety just what form of organization can handle this new
form of public activity. All of the facts need to be collected and studied."

To meet the need for more school play space, playground people of California
are planning to bring before the legislature a bill fixing the minimum size of school
grounds at 100 square feet per pupil.

IV.

WHAT IS A PLAYGROUND?

A playground is a place to play. But, it must be more than that, else the chil-
dren will not be attracted and will not come ; and it does' not secure the desired
results. A playground should have apparatus and equipment, yet even such a play-
ground does not secure large attendance of children and may become a public
nuisance. A third factor — supervision — is an essential. In fact, the three, space,
equipment, and supervision, are necessary to the playground in its perfection ; the
first and the last are essentials.

The need for more space is easily recognized. The school playground, the street
and prim parks with inviolable grass have been too often the only play places for
the children of cities and towns. In most places school playgrounds have been
entirely unsuitable in size. Only the simplest games or no games at all could be
played. Advanced educational thought is now heartily for roomy school grounds
everywhere ; a standard has been fixed at thirty square feet, at the very least, for
each pupil. The size of municipal playgrounds can be determined by no such
standard, of course, but a committee of the Playground and Recreation Association
of America, in a recent report, set two acres as the minimum.

CHOOSING THE EQUIPMENT.

The proper equipment and organization of a playground is a technical matter
that will naturally be shaped by the leader or director in charge of the work.
There are numerous experts now at work in the State, who may be appealed to for
advice or assistance, such for instance as C. B. Raitt, director of the Los Angeles
city playgrounds; Bessie L. Stoddart, president of the Los Angeles Playground
Commission ; L- H. Weir, field secretary of the Playground and Recreation Asso-
ciation of America, with Pacific coast offices at 1058 Phelan Building, San Francisco,
Cal. : Max L. Stone, director of the Q-street playground in Sacramento, and
others.

The following pieces of apparatus are almost universally used and may be
regarded as standard equipment at present :

The sand bin, for the little tots. It consists of a sheltered and protected space
enclosed like a flower bed and filled with clean sand. Many fascinating activities
center about if.

The slide, for the next size of children. Its great advantage is that it can be
used continuously by any number of children. Many of the best pieces of apparatus
for individual use are practically worthless for the playground, because they can not
be used by large numbers at the same time. The slide furnishes exhilarating exer-
cise in rapid succession and is perhaps the most popular feature of the playground.

The horizontal bar, for boys of all ages and conditions is probably the most use-
ful apparatus of all. It should be adjustable in height and should be underlain by
a bed of sawdust or other elastic material to avoid accidents.

The swing is probably the most common piece of apparatus in the play of small
children everywhere. It is also one of the most dangerous, and, as generally made,
one of the most unsightly. The swing frame should be of steel gaspipe, 3 inches
in diameter if threaded or 2y2 inches if made with solid joints. The whole should
be well braced and set in concrete about 3*4 or 4 feet deep. The swings for a

school yard should not be over 8 or 10 feet high. The tall swing takes up too much
room, is preempted by the larger children, and is too dangerous. The swings should
be placed in the most retired corner of the yard and parallel with the fence, where
the other children will not be struck. People are apt to fear that the children will
be hurt by falling out of the swing. This rarely happens. The real danger is to
the child who is running by. If two children are standing up in a swing and swing-
ing hard and another child runs by and is struck in the side of the head, he wilt
certainly be seriously injured and may be killed. In some places the swings are
fenced off, so as to prevent this. A piece of rubber hose is sometimes nailed to the
side of the swing board, so as to deaden the blow if a child is struck. For the
school yard it is best to have as light a swing as possible, because its momentum is
not so great in that case, and it is easier to put out and take in. A wooden board
and ropes are to be preferred to an iron seat and chains or links.

Seesaws, ladders, parallel bars, wooden horses, swinging rings, giant strides and
other things of the kind can be added to the apparatus when room and funds
permit.

Gardening is one of the most pleasant and helpful activities
of the playground.

There should always be generous provision for active games and room reserved
for gang plays in every decent playground. The lively sports, requiring running,
jumping, striking, throwing, all under the exhilaration of the contest and out in the
open air, are much more beneficial in every way than the cold and artificial exer-
cises of the gymnasium, much better than anything carried on by means of formal
apparatus. The real function of the playground is to furnish opportunity for the
natural sports and games of American youth. It is absurd in California, the land
of sunshine and outdoor life, to have indoor gymnasiums, or to shut away the free
air of heaven from any of our forms of bodily exercise.

Every effort should be made to provide a ball ground, not only for boys, but for
girls. Tennis and basketball are splendid. Volley ball, indoor baseball, tether ball.

10

— 8 —

are excellent expedients for restricted space. Running tracks and jumping pits
may be provided. Swimming and wading pools add to the zest and interest.

When the playground merges into the community recreation center, the scope of
equipment becomes truly vast, and almost as varied as the public life of the people.

USE OF THE SCHOOL YARD.*

"In a number of school systems of my acquaintance," says Henry S. Curtis, in a
recent bulletin of the United States Bureau of Education, "the school yard is used
not more than half an hour to an hour a day. The children are sent home at noon.
They are not allowed to come in the morning until just before school, and they are
required to go home as soon as school is out. The thought has been apparently to
use the school grounds as little as possible. We are getting a new conception of
what is desirable, however, and the whole tendency is toward wider use. I am
personally inclined to think that the next ten years will see the use of all suitable
school yards quadrupled. This is coming through the rapid extension of the sum-
mer playground, through its supervision after school and on Saturdays for the
same purpose, and in its continuous use throughout the day for the play of
different classes. I expect the next great extension of its use to be as a playground
at night for the adults and working boys and girls of the community. If the play-
ground is properly lighted, it is possible to make it a delightful place for such games
as voile}* ball, basket ball, tether ball, and even indoor baseball in the evening. If
the school furnishes a swimming pool, this will give very nearly the same physical
facilities that the Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Women's
Christian Association offer.

"For the small child the paramount question is not arithmetic or geography, but
physical health. For the six-year-old, two hours in the classroom is probably
enough. He ought to have two or three periods in the playground every day.
This time may well grow less from year to year until it gets down to perhaps three
periods a week. The child needs at least three periods for physical training.
Three periods are required in the common schools of Germany, and when we con-
sider that games mean not only physical training, but social and moral training as
well, no thoughtful person can well think three periods too much. These play
periods should be so arranged that in the larger schools there would be two or
three classes in the yard all the time. The regular teachers should play with the
children, but there should be a special playground teacher in charge. In the upper
classes four baseball ancl four volley ball teams might well be formed in each class.
The girls play both of these games as well or nearly as well as the boys, and every
child should be required to play. This will give a good period of physical training
in the open air, and the volley ball will be one of the best possible exercises for
correcting the stooped and rounded shoulders and the flat chests of the classroom."

LEADER ALL=IMPORTANT.

Important as are the physical assets of the playground, the personal element
overshadows all else. The personality of the play leader is, at bottom, the one
factor that counts vitally. Miss Bessie L. Stoddart, president of the Los Angeles
Playground Commission, summing up her wide experience, declared recently : "I

* Any one interested in this matter should by all means send to the United States
Bureau of Education at Washington, D. C., for a copy of Bulletin No. 16, "The
Reorganized Playground."

11

would say that the success of a playground rests ninety per cent upon the character
and ability of the one in charge, letting ten per cent represent the equipment."

The power for good that the right kind of a play leader may exert is really vast.
The physical ends to be obtained through the playground may be summed up as
strength, energy and happiness in the children. The scope of the social ends that
may be effectively reached is as wide as life itself.

Cleanliness is of prime importance. Provision for washing should always be
made, personal talks given children who are dirty, and recognition to the children
who are neat. Politeness can be taught by example and by encouraging its prac-
tice to the leader and to the other children during play, when it is most apt to be
neglected. Formation of friendships; obedience to the rules of the games; loyalty
to the team; but not unreasoning partisanship; justice in the enforcement of the
"square deal" ; honesty ; truthfulness ; courage and determination — all these and
others of the qualities needful for the make-up of real men and women can and
should be cultivated on the playground even more effectively than in the school./

The director should be a companion; should know as many of the children as
possible by name, and be their friend, sympathetic and interested in their experi-
ences and plans, willing to help in all their right endeavors. If he possesses any
prowess or skill, it will increase the effectiveness of his example in everything ;
and, conversely, ignorance of rules or inability to take part effectively in any play-
ground activity will decrease his influence in everything.

Thus, a prime need of the movement to-day is for trained leaders, thoroughly
equipped in a technical way and by nature fitted for the social side of the work.
There is necessity for capable men and women to mold best results from the
materials put in their hands, by this swift and sure campaign for the uplift of
humanity.

The children must play. Give them the opportunity to do it well. To withhold
it is dangerous to the State.

< **r«8P

12

A HIGH SCHOOL SWIMMING POOL

How Enterprise Improved Life for One
Community

Escondido High School swimming pool, built through the enterprise of principal and pupils,
being used by the girls of the school.

We usually think of a swimming pool as a theoretical affair, very far away
from the public school. Yet, here is a picture of a pool that is in operation to-day
at the Escondido High School, in San Diego County. The girls are taking a
swim, in charge of their teacher.

The pool is the result of an idea conceived by John H. Crippen, then principal
of the school, when he one day accompanied the boys of the school to a makeshift
"swimming hole" in the river, where they were accustomed to congregate. Mr.
Crippen got the boys and girls interested in the idea of the swimming pool, so
that they donated about $100, and themselves did the work of excavation during
noon recesses and on Saturdays. The trustees of the school gave about $300, and
one of them secured a donation of $1CO in water stock.

The pool has been a great success in every sense. The children helped in
making rules, which they afterward enforced, such as a provision for shower baths
before using the plunge, and careful safety regulations.

The pool was built practically without capital, in decomposed granite soil, on
top of a hill, and in a region where water costs money. The water drawn from
the pool is used for irrigation, so there is no loss. An equal amount of enterprise
could make the school swimming plunge common in California, instead of a rarity
among rarities.

13

TAMALPAIS CENTER

A Country Club for All
the People

Imagine a country club for all the people. Picture a spot made the center of the
recreational life of half a dozen cities and towns, and a wide country neighborhood.
Think of those communities in time linked by a close bond of civic interests, devel-
oped through a playground that is set down in the midst of fields, hills and wood-
land. This may help you to a conception of Tamalpais Center, and its probable
future.

Twenty-nine acres of beautiful, hill-girt country land in an attractive little valley
in Marin County are now being used solely for the purposes of recreation. The
land, with a modern concrete building in the California Mission style, and an
equipment of apparatus and athletic grounds comprise the Tamalpais Center, located
at Kentfield. Patrons of the place come from all the lower half of Marin County,
and the holiday crowds it attracts are drawn from the entire Bay region.

The Center was organized on May Day, 1909, as a result of a gift of twenty-nine
acres from Mrs. A. E. Kent, wife of the California Congressman. It is controlled
by a self-perpetuating corporation, but is now leased for a term of two years to a
club of progressive women, who manage the place. Every department is free to
the public. A trained woman playground leader has charge and supervision of
activities.

These activities comprise dancing, lectures, dramatics, folk dancing, art classes,
religious study classes, and the athletic and play features. A ballroom, theater,

Crowd collected at the clubhouse, Kentfield, on the occasion of a May Day festival.
Thousands flock to see the children play on these occasions. The suggestion of life and
color is borne out in the original of the picture.

14

clubrooms, gymnasia indoors and outdoors, athletic field and running track, ball
courts, baths, and every modern apparatus are included in the equipment.

The clubhouse is unusually complete. Its floors are large and of the best
materials; the stage and scenery all that are necessary for a first class, if small,
theater ; the club rooms cozy though roomy, with huge open fireplaces to give
a fine suggestion of comfort ; the dressing rooms completely furnished ; the
kitchen roomy and fitted out with every essential and convenience. The athletic
fields are so well suited to their purpose that they are used by the schools of the
county for their principal games and field sports.

Tamalpais Center is a novel experiment. Very much is expected of its future
development by men who are most interested in problems of civic improvement.
Xow, it seems to lack a supporting public. But it is believed that with increase of
population that is bound to come as years go by, the public value of the Center will
increase immeasurably, and that it will not only become a public property of the
first importance, but also a notable monument to the public spirit of its donor.

A typical scene at the Tamalpais Civic Center, Kentfield, showing the apparatus in use
by bevies of children who have come from far and near. Note the line waiting to use the
slide, which is probably the most popular and useful piece of equipment in any typical
playground.

15

A SUNDAY SCHOOL PLAYGROUND

Life = Giving Plan Supplants Traditional
Graveyard

Walking along a street in San Francisco one day, I happened to spy a lot of
children having a grand time playing in a church yard. Over the gate was the
hospitable and inviting placard shown in the picture.

Isn't this a contrast to the traditional church yard? Better a place of light and
life for the children than a burying ground for the dead.

This unique idea originated with Mr. Rolla V. Watt, one of the leading citizens
of the city, who gives the following brief account of it :

''Rather than allow this valuable corner to lie idle we decided to institute a
children's playground for the benefit of the neighborhood in which we were
situated. You will recall that while this was largely a residential section prior to
the fire (of 1906), since that time no residences have been reconstructed — board-
ing houses and apartment houses abound, and such dwelling places do not
afford any opportunity for the recreation of the children housed therein. This
playground, therefore, proved to be a boon to that neighborhood, and will
continue to be in operation until we are in a position to complete our church
building." (E. H.)

Novel invitation to enter a city churchyard.

16

Second grade "playground ball" at the Chico Normal Training School.
"Playground Ball" is an adaption of reeular baseball suitable for
small spaces and crowded playgrounds. It is played with a large,
soft ball and the bases are only half as far apart as in base ball. It
is a splendid game for boys and girls and should be provided on
all restricted play spaces.

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